Don't Breathe Too Deep
by Fayre Vala
Summary: Anna and Elsa have been moving forward in the week since Elsa thawed the fjord. But some hurts will emerge whether you're ready for them to or not. Trigger warnings: Attempted suicide.


Note: God save my soul, I'm probably going to hell for this one.

* * *

Anna had been missing from breakfast.

Which was strange, considering they'd spent every meal together since the… the incident…

No, Elsa had to start calling it what it was. She had frozen the fjord and fled her kingdom. As much as she wished she could just forget how irresponsible she had been, Anna had been so overwhelmingly kind about the whole thing, and helped Elsa realize that she had to accept her past if she was ever going to move forward. Her sister had been so supportive and a really necessary guide in the last week (had it only been a week?), and Elsa knew they had the rest of their lives to learn each other.

Which is why she was so surprised when Anna hadn't shown.

Elsa'd thought she'd been getting better; she was starting to open up, talk about how she felt more, she'd even stopped closing her door all the way, even at night, just on the off chance that Anna needed her (or really more like if she needed Anna). Had she said something? Something careless about their past? Elsa wasn't the only one going through some serious healing. Her sudden absence from Anna's life had been painful and damaging (a fact that she had hated herself for more and more every day), but together they'd been coping…

She left the table and softly walked down the corridors toward her room, her head in a bit of a cloudy haze as she thought back to everything she had said and done yesterday. She reached for the handle out of habit, but found that it wasn't there. Her door was ajar. _Funny_, she thought, _I know I closed it on my way to breakfast_… That's when she heard the faint rustling of paper and muffled sobs emanating from her room.

"Anna?" Elsa pushed open the door to find her sister crumpled on the floor in a heap of skirts and scattered pages, tears streaming down her face. Elsa felt her heart pound faster and the panic start to seep in. Sharp, deadly ice sprouted instantly at each of the windows. "Anna, what is it, what's wrong?" Nevermind why her sister was in her room, the sight of Anna's distress wiped all else from her mind as she rushed to her sister's side. Anna choked back sobs as she tried to control herself, but every time she glanced down at the papers surrounding her, her control wavered and a wave of fresh tears spilled onto her face. Elsa picked one of the pages up, scanning it for the source of Anna's despair…

_January 13_

_Dear Papa,_

_I know you did the best you could, but I can't live with this burden any more. If you are reading this, then I have been successful. Please, please don't blame yourself, it was too much for any of us to handle. Make sure to give my letters to Mama, and to Anna…._

Oh God, no…

A sharp pain erupted in her heart, and the ice spread up to the ceiling in response. "Anna, let me explain…"

"There's nothing to explain! It's all right there, isn't it? Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Anna, I wrote these when… It was winter, and it was so dark everywhere, I couldn't see any hope for myself…"

But Anna couldn't bear it. Still clutching one of the letters, she launched herself out of the room and down the hall, her sobs echoing back to Elsa like the cries of the demons she had finally started to expel from her mind.

Furious tears welled up in her own eyes. Elsa was going to tell her, she was, as soon as there was a good moment for it: why their father had separated the two of them, the accident, Anna's white streak of hair, how lonely she had felt and how she tried so hard to control her powers so they could be reunited. But Elsa had been selfish. She'd ignored the need to tell her sister the whole truth because laughing with and loving her sister had just felt so _good_. She didn't want to cause anymore pain, she had done enough already. But letting Anna find out so indirectly, so _cruelly,_ from a note she'd written years ago…

Elsa grabbed a handful of the soft, yellowed pages, and balled them up in her fists, throwing them into the fireplace. In a frenzy, she grabbed more and more, tearing them into shreds and viciously tossing them into the fire. A note for every time she had tried to use her powers against herself. She watched them burn, burn, burn, and wished that she could burn with them, that she could feel anything but the numbing cold. A scream bubbled up from the pit of her stomach, but her throat was too thick with guilt and self-hatred for it to escape. When every last one of the pages were gone, when her energy and fury was spent, she curled up on the floor, hugging her knees, waiting for the tears to cease. After a while, her wild panic died down into a dull, pulsing ache in the hollow of her chest, a sprinkling of snow falling onto her still frame.

Yes, she had tried to end her pain. She had tried and tried and tried, but in the end, she had to accept the fact that her powers couldn't hurt her. They only had the capacity to hurt others, to hurt _Anna_…

But she knew now. She knew that wasn't true. Elsa had changed, she had controlled her power… or at least she was starting to.

Why, why, why had she kept those letters? How had Anna found them? Why was she even in her room? Ugh, she hated herself for even asking those questions. It didn't matter anymore, the damage was done. She needed to get up off the floor, find her sister, and explain, really, properly this time, but felt too exhausted to move.

"They were never going to tell me, were they?"

The words startled Elsa into action, hastening to pick herself up off the floor. Anna leaned in the doorway, eyes red and her face tearstained, still clutching the last remaining letter.

"What— what do you mean?" The words almost didn't leave Elsa's throat.

Anna crossed the threshold and collapsed on Elsa's bed. "I asked them about you, so many times. At dinner, before bed, when we were in the library reading. All Papa did was deflect and change the subject. I could tell Mama wanted to talk about it, that she was dying to tell me something, but in the end she would only smile and kiss me and say goodnight. Was a time ever going to come when they would actually answer me?"

Elsa couldn't answer. All the shame of her past clouded her mind, made it difficult to think. She hated that her first instinct in this moment was to run, just as she had not ten days before, that she was reverting right back to staying silent, but she was paralyzed. It wasn't until she felt a hand wrap around hers that she could tear her eyes off the floor.

Anna held up the wrinkled pages between them, balled them up in her hand and threw them, the last tie Elsa had to that dark despair, into the flames. "It was an accident. You couldn't have helped it."

Elsa had thought she had cried all of her tears, but somehow they prickled their way to the surface. "I was going to tell you," she croaked.

"I know. I know you were, when the time was right. I just… I wish I'd known how lonely you were. I hate that I couldn't do anything to help."

Elsa's eyes widened. "You finally learn the truth, about me, about _you_, and all you can think about is how lonely _I_ was? Anna—"

"If you were serious in these notes, which I suspect you were, about… about it, then how can I not think about you? You're my sister, and I love you, and I want to make sure you're okay _now_!"

Elsa wrapped her arms around Anna, too tightly, but she was afraid that if she let go, her sister would disappear in front of her. Half of her believed that none of this was real, that she and her sister weren't friends again, that she was still trapped in her cage and the ice would keep her frozen within it forever. But if she held on to Anna, just for this moment, she could let herself be, she could exist with the world, not away from it.

"As long as you're real and whole and _happy_, I will always be okay." Anna wrapped her own arms around her, and together they stood, two sisters with hearts too full of love to feel the pain of the past.


End file.
